I keep my blog as a personal record of what I'm up to, which might be seen as working towards "An elegant sufficiency, content, retirement, rural quiet, friendship, books, ease and alternate labour, useful life"

I met a friend in Cheltenham last Friday and arriving a little early, I couldn’t resist popping into Just Fabrics who often have a great selection of the fabrics I make my useful bags in.

Did I need to make more bags? Not really. But it’s always good to have a few on hand and these seaside prints were so fresh and clean, I couldn’t resist. Yesterday afternoon, whilst the rain was pouring down outside, I cut the fabric and was pleased to get three large and three medium sized bags from two metres of fabric. (For my record, I bought one metre of the spot and half a metre of each of the co-ordinating seashell colourways). I had very little fabric left over, but put it to one side, because “you never know”.

I usually make these bags in a batch, finding it easier to complete the same stage on all six bags one after the other. I completed three yesterday afternoon and ran out of time, so put the finishing touches to the other three this morning. Before I did, I read a few emails and a couple of favourite blogs. One of these blogs, Bemused, had a great tutorial for making napkins from fun cotton prints. I read it through, bookmarked it for future use and considered the many possibilities.

Then I looked across at the left over pieces of fabric.

In no time at all, I’d made a couple of smallish (9” square) mats from the leftover pieces of seaside prints. How clever is that method! Just like the construction of my bags, all edges are neatly encased, there’s no obvious joins and without that clear tutorial, I’d never have worked out how to do it!

Most satisfying of all was the small pile of leftover fabric. I’d used nearly all of it up and there were only a few bits left.

But hang on a minute. (I’ll bet you’re one step ahead of me here, aren’t you?)

Ta dah! Two smaller mats, coasters perhaps, from those bits that were leftover from the project that was made from the leftovers of the previous one.

Not a bad result, eh? Six bags, two 9” mats and two smaller 5” mats from a couple of metres of fabric. (Bag instructions here, by the way)